Just six short months on from the start of the project with our IVS mapping survey, this land's been cleared, bunds and paddys constructed, rice seed nursed and planted and Mr Mohammed Lamin, Makelekos All-Stars chief, takes a deserved bow for a well-spent rainy season with paddy after newly-constructed paddy ripening golden yellow.
With thanks due also to the Azolla, mother nature's little miracle plant, which has provided the fertilizer for five of these six paddys!
And with harvest time approaching some of the Makelekos ladies put in an appearance to scope the work thats needed, amazed that they weren't needed once to weed the paddys because of the dense mat that Azolla forms.
This harvest is looking so good we know our Hope Sakuma farmer field school is going to persuade farmer's with ease of the benefits Azolla is set to bring - reduced fertilizer costs and weeding time and a very profitable rice-azolla-duck-vegetable system, widely used in what are now middle income countries.
And we're going to show, here on our demonstration farm, Azolla’s myriad benefits and applications working in practice and showing Azolla can not only help improve food security and nutrition in Sanda Magbolontor but also peoples’ health and the local economy by drawing on proven projects from IVS landscapes around the world, helping these forest communities intensify crop production sustainably and diversify livelihoods to build sustainable communities and stop rampant deforestation in the chiefdom.
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